So how exactly does Hypertext Markup Language work? Basically, there are a
number of commands that you enclose in greater-than and lesser-than symbols
(< and >) and then dump in the relevant places in your text document.
These commands-in-greater-than-and-lesser-than-symbols are called "tags." You
usually require two tags per command -- one tag telling the computer where a
particular command takes effect, and another tag telling the computer where that
command expires.
The most common commands tell the computer that you're using HTML as your
coding lingo (<HTML>), that you're writing commands at the top of your
document which will not appear onscreen (<HEAD>), that you're writing the
title of your piece (<TITLE>), that you're into the body of your article
(<BODY>). To create line-breaks between paragraphs, type <P>. To
specify font size and style, type <FONT>. If you want to italicize your
font, follow up the previous command with an <I>. For bold, type
<B>.
It's just that simple. There hardly seems a need for What You See Is What You
Get (WYSIWYG) programs, which allow you to bypass HTML altogether and post
content on the web pretty much as it appears on conventional word-processing
software. This is like pretending to speak a foreign language while constantly
referring to a pocket dictionary. And, in today's bilingual world, that kind of
ploy will never get you sprechen de lingo de choix. You've got to get out there
and mix with the natives. You're got to express yourself in
HTML.
RSS Newsletter
